In nearly half a century of activity in various fields, I have always needed to be a translator. Beginning with an obscure academic specialty that left me no option but to translate journal articles from French, German, Spanish, and Dutch; to an extended residence in France as an archivist supplementing my income with freelance medical and technical translations; to a subsequent career as a Customs attorney, dealing with industrial processes from around the globe in support of classification claims; to a time in financial services, working in equity research on companies and markets in Latin America; and, finally, to a series of legal document reviews and litigation preparation in a wide variety of fields and six foreign languages in addition to my native English -- I have always been a translator. I have reached the point where I feel I can be most effective as a freelancer once more. I am familiar with and current in many fields, and more importantly, I have the mental agility to embrace a new area, understand its substance and methods, and learn the vocabulary with which its practitioners work.
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